Paul Laurence Dunbar

�A Negro Love Song�

a)      Why is this called �Negro� love song?  Love poetry tradition�ancient.   Use of dialect�why use it?  It is written for speakers of the dialect in which it is written? No!  He�s trying to celebrate, make his elite audience (black and white, world) aware of the �poetry� of the common person.  This is similar to the European Romantic Movement that emphasized the �the language of ordinary men� as poetic (Wordsworth).   Move away from artificiality in verse�toward real images, real emotions. 

b)      Compare to Christopher Marlowe love poem (below)

a.       Diction is less formal, �literary�, artificial

b.      Would a real shepherd write poetry like this?   Pastoral tradition shepherd persona of the lover/swain  (is a real shepherd going to have gold, ivory, etc.)

c.       How does Dunbar�s poem echo the pastoral tradition?  What images or words?  Mockingbird, pine (Southern language/location); both have eroticism (waist, taste)��jump back, honey, jump back��nonsense but also suggests sex

d.      Classicists�these writers were trying to create poetry/lit. along the lines the classical models (Greek, Roman, English) but at the same time make them up to date and fit the �negro� culture: African American culture has the same depth and breadth of classic culture  (WEB DuBois� �talented tenth��top ten % which leads a culture) validation of black culture

�Sympathy�

a)      How does this poem differ from �A Negro Love Song�?  No dialect, written in Standard (archaic) English��opes� instead of opens)�using �poetic diction� of traditional English poetry.  Is this poem about race? Yes (universalizes the sorrow of living in a racist society to any situation where one lacks freedom); pastoral imagery (slopes, grass, glass, buds) ironic or jarring (nature should be at peace, harmony, but instead we have this unnatural �cage�)  

b)      What is the cage?  Mental slavery, yellow wall paper brainwashing   Why is the bird beating his wings on the cruel bars? Why can�t he just be happy?  It�s unnatural.  Dunbar is saying racism/segregation is unnatural.  Self-inflicted wound/self-mutilation: one of the ultimate horrors of racism/segregation is the destruction of the self

c)       Why does he �fling� his song to Heaven?  Hopelessness

d)      Why this title?  Why not �The Caged Bird�  It�s asking for the reader�s sympathy, the idea of sympathy in general, is there sympathy at all�from God? 

�We Wear the Mask�

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile; (deception)
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,

And mouth with myriad subtleties.  (say in many different subtle ways that avoid the obvious)

Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
          We wear the mask.             (Why should the world see our vulnerability, we wear in defense, defiance�our one method of revolution)

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.   (Sympathy: do you hear us, Lord?)
We sing, but oh the clay is vile   (the body is debased, not spiritual)
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
          We wear the mask!       (why the exclamation point?  Even in passiveness this is an act of aggression?)

What is the mask?  Veil?  Must hide your real self, emotions, identity, you must play a social role instead of freely who you are�blackface characters

Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima as mask characters used to sell products (why does America want to buy these images)

a)      If you buy this product you are upper-class (have servants)

b)      Race relations are just fine (blacks are happy serving whites)

c)      Blacks are sexless, helpful, subservient, useful

 

Christopher Marlowe: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

 (pastoral love song for comparison to "A Negro Love Song"

COME live with me and be my Love,

 

And we will all the pleasures prove

 

That hills and valleys, dale and field,

 

And all the craggy mountains yield.

 

  

 

There will we sit upon the rocks

         5

And see the shepherds feed their flocks,

 

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

 

Melodious birds sing madrigals.

 

  

 

There will I make thee beds of roses

 

And a thousand fragrant posies,

  10

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

 

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

 

  

 

A gown made of the finest wool

 

Which from our pretty lambs we pull,

 

Fair lin�d slippers for the cold,

  15

With buckles of the purest gold.

 

  

 

A belt of straw and ivy buds

 

With coral clasps and amber studs:

 

And if these pleasures may thee move,

 

Come live with me and be my Love.

  20

  

 

Thy silver dishes for thy meat

 

As precious as the gods do eat,

 

Shall on an ivory table be

 

Prepared each day for thee and me.

 

  

 

The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

  25

For thy delight each May-morning:

 

If these delights thy mind may move,

 

Then live with me and be my Love.

 

 

 
Last Modified 7/1/23